


Tangled Web

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Attacks, Authority, Battle, Discipline, Disownment, Fairness, Family, Fealty, Gen, Healing, Inheritance, Justice, Knight & Squire, Law, Letters, Loyalty, Marriage, Orders, Politics, Raids, Rescue, Tariffs, Taxes, faithfulness, spidrens, trade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-11
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-03 09:29:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,253
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13338378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Roald's first winter in Port Legann is a tangled web.





	1. Death and Taxes

Death and Taxes 

“It’s a letter from Chancellor Giovanni Mercutio, the chief councilor of Tyra, my lord.” Roald slit open the envelope on top of a stack—sorted by seniority of the sender—on Lord Imrah’s desk as they read and responded to the pile of correspondence in Lord Imrah’s study. Eyeing the lengthy salutation and noticing that the Tyran Chancellor had included every title his knightmaster possessed, Roald added, tart as a lemon, “He begins with a long list of your titles to remind you of your magnificence. I could read them for you if you like.” 

“That won’t be necessary.” Lord Imrah waved a hand for Roald to continue. “Consider me sufficiently reminded of my magnificence.” 

“He goes on to compliment you and your family, sir.” Roald skimmed the first paragraph and performed a quick count of the lines filled with effusive praise of Lord Imrah and his family. “The compliments continue for fifty lines, which is longer than the typical Tyran letter that often only has twenty or thirty lines devoted to such charming comments.” 

The Tyrans were loquacious and raised flattery to an art form to rival their beautiful paintings and stunning statues, which made the beginning of their letters quite tedious unless ones appreciated sycophantic words, but once the Tyrans started talking business, they were shrewd and blunt. 

“Fifty lines doesn’t surprise me.” Lord Imrah gave a crooked, crescent moon smile. “They must be upset with the king’s increase in tariffs on their textiles and engaging in a policy of hugging a Tortallan to encourage change.” 

“Hugging a Tortallan, my lord?” Roald’s lips twitched at Lord Imrah’s incisive political commentary. His knightmaster never failed to find a turn of phrase to describe political realities in a way that was accurate and amusing. 

“Praising and pleading with Tortallan nobles to convince them to approach your father about lowering the tariffs on Tyran textiles, Roald.” Lord Imrah’s smile broadened as he elaborated. 

“Papa won’t do that unless they lower their tariff on our grain.” Roald’s gaze clouded like the pewter gray December sky outside the window hovering over a gloomy ocean. “It was their decision to raise the tariff on our grain that sparked the trade war. Papa had to retaliate when they attacked our exports.” 

“I understand that, lad.” Lord Imrah spoke mildly but the command in his tone was clear when he went on, “Please resume reading the letter.” 

“Yes, sir.” Roald ducked his head and struggled against a scowl as he summarized the Tyran Chancellor’s words. “He writes to you in distress about the plummeting sales of Tyran textiles to Port Legann and implores you to remember that Tyra supplies over sixty percent of the textiles imported into Port Legann every year. He urges you to recall that smooth trade is mutually beneficial to Tyra and Port Legann so you would be wise to do all in your power to facilitate it. He remains your faithful friend and closes with blessings to you and your family.” 

“I see.” Lord Imrah massaged his temples as he considered the letter’s contents. “Please compose a reply for me.” 

As Roald, pulling out quill and parchment, wrote a formal address to the Chancellor of Tyra from the Lord of Legann, Lord Imrah mulled over a response. By the time Roald had finished the greeting, Lord Imrah was prepared to dictate: “Thank him for his interest in my family and me. Assure him that we remain in good health and prosperity, praise be to all the gods. Begin a new paragraph and remind him with due courtesy that we in Port Legann value Tyran textiles but have been increasing our imports of Yamani silk by ten percent a year for the past three years. Point out as well that tariffs in Tortall in contrast to those in Tyra aren’t determined at a city level but rather at a country one. Politely suggest that all concerns and negotiations regarding textile tariffs be directed to the King of Tortall. Offer a diplomatic statement about appreciating Port Legann’s deep trading relationship with Tyra and always doing what is within my authority strengthen it. After that, start another paragraph to close with blessings to him and his family. Then give it to me for my signature.” 

“Yes, my lord.” Roald wrote each word with care and then handed the letter to Lord Imrah for his signature. 

As Lord Imrah put quill to parchment to sign his name, Roald bit his lip. “May I speak, sir?” 

“Of course, Roald.” Lord Imrah rested the quill on his desk as he focused his full attention on Roald. “What’s on your mind?” 

“You say to the Tyran Chancellor that the imports of Yamani silk are up ten percent a year, and that’s true, but it remains a rather small share of the textile market especially in comparison to Tyran textiles.” Roald’s forehead furrowed. He had heard the rumbles in the streets of Port Legann and knew that commerce was in a downward spiral when merchants mumbled that the only constants in life were death and taxes. He trusted the vision of his father’s policies, but he worried about the people of Port Legann if trade continued to suffer. “Yamani silk can’t begin to compete with Tyran textiles for many years to come, my lord.” 

“I realize that, you realize that, and Chancellor Mercutio likely does as well though I aim to have him doubting that.” Lord Imrah drummed his fingers against his desk then asked, “Squire, what do you define as the principal geographic features of Tyra?” 

“Cities and swamps, sir.” Roald was nonplussed at the seemingly random question and would probably have been able to devise a more detailed analysis if he hadn’t been so wrong-footed. 

“Very good.” Apparently satisfied with Roald’s answer, Lord Imrah nodded in approval. “These swamps don’t provide enough sustenance to sustain Tyra’s thriving cities, making the cities dependent upon trade with other countries for their survival. Would you care to guess the largest supplier of grain to Tyra?” 

“Tortall, my lord?” ventured Roald, who thought he had stumbled across such a fact in Lord Imrah’s expansive library. 

“Exactly.” Lord Imrah’s eyes gleamed with the cunning of a fox. “The Tyrans are taxing a vital foodstuff, while we’re targeting a luxury we can ultimately live without. If grain gets scarce in Tyra, the common classes will revolt. Nothing breeds rebellion faster than hunger. The Tyran Chancellor has more to fear than His Majesty or me, Roald.” 

“Yes, sir.” Roald flushed. “When you explain it, it seems obvious.” 

“Then I’ve done a good job explaining a complicated issue.” Lord Imrah’s remark eased Roald’s embarrassment. 

Roald was reaching for the next letter awaiting Lord Imrah’s attention when there was a sharp rap on the door that provided the lone warning before Bryce, one of Lord Imrah’s guards, burst into the room. 

“I beg your pardon, milord.” Bryce bowed. “I wouldn’t barge in unless it were important. Master Guildsman Denis Preston is insisting on meeting with you at once. He claims the matter is urgent, and he’s in a towering temper if milord will forgive my saying so.” 

Master Guildsman Denis was one of Port Legann’s wealthiest and most influential merchants, so Roald wasn’t shocked when Lord Imrah inclined his head. “Very well. I’ll speak with him now. Show him in please, Bryce.” 

As Bryce saw himself out with another bow, Lord Imrah observed wryly to Roald, “Doubtlessly Guildsman Denis wishes to discuss the tariffs on Tyran textiles and won’t be appeased with the explanation you were, but at least there’s never a dull moment for the lord of a port city.”


	2. House Divided

House Divided

“I’m aware that the textile tariffs must be onerous for you and the members of your guild.” Lord Imrah, after greetings were exchanged, seemed to be trying to preempt an attack from Guildmaster Denis. “I sympathize with your woes but hope that you understand that these tariffs are a matter of country rather than fief policy. There are broader interests in the realm than just our own, Guildmaster.” 

“The tariffs, my lord?” Guildmaster Denis couldn’t have been more wrong-footed if Lord Imrah had begun babbling in Scanran. Regaining his conversational grounding, he answered his own question, “Yes, the tariffs have been quite onerous on my fellow merchants and myself, of course, but as you said, larger issues must be appreciated. It’s not tariffs that concern me now.” 

“I assumed tariffs would be the principle problem you would like me to address. If there’s another matter you wish to bring to my attention, please do so.” Lord Imrah waved a hand in an invitation for the guildmaster to share his grievance as Roald wondered what could possibly concern a merchant more than tariffs at this moment. 

“It might be more a matter for the civil courts to decide than you, my lord, but the courts take forever to reach a ruling if you’ll pardon my saying so, and time is money.” Guildmaster Denis coughed in what Roald suspected had been intended as an almost subtle sound but instead was as noisy as if the merchant were hacking up a lung. “I hoped your judgment might be swifter.” 

“If it’s in my power to resolve, I will do so as fast and as fair as I may.” Gravely Lord Imrah inclined his head. 

“Thank you, my lord.” Guildmaster Denis bowed. Rising with his face as florid as the copper curls about his ears, he continued, “I believe that you’ll have the authority to resolve the situation because it’s as much a matter of household discipline for you as it is for me if you’ll forgive my bluntness. I wouldn’t presume to bother your lordship otherwise.” 

“A matter of household discipline for you and me?” Lord Imrah’s frown echoed the one weighing down Roald’s lips. “You wouldn’t be referring to Emma, would you, Guildmaster Denis?” 

Emma was a lively sixteen-year-old who served Lady Marielle as an attendant. Her wit was keen but she was even defter with a needle. She was also Guildmaster Denis’ only daughter, Roald recalled with a squirming stomach. 

“I’m afraid I am, my lord.” Guildmaster Denis’ tone was as grim and gray as the sky threatening a deluge outside the study window. 

Roald’s stomach dropped like a rock because he didn’t want Emma, who brightened Legann castle like a perpetual ray of sunshine even on overcast days such as this increasingly bleak one, to be in trouble with her temperamental father or the far less mercurial Lord Imrah. 

Lord Imrah was steady as stone when he nodded. “Very well.” To Bryce his guardsman, he added, “Please escort Emma from Lady Marielle’s solar to my study at once.” 

“As you will, milord.” Bryce bowed and disappeared, door closing decisively in his wake, to fetch Emma for what Roald had an ominous feeling would be a difficult discussion. 

As the door shut behind Bryce, Roald had to resist the urge to wince at the noise, which reverberated too loudly in the suddenly otherwise silent room. The sharp slamming sound seemed to foreshadow trouble for Emma. Shifting futilely to find a comfortable posture though all his discomfiture arose from inner uncertainty, Roald contemplated what mischief she could have gotten herself into that would require her lord’s interference. 

Two days ago, she’d been granted a day’s leave as she was every month by Lady Marielle, Roald remembered. He supposed that she could have abused that liberty to make too merry in the taverns or to steal something small from her father’s house, but such problems could be handled by Guildsmaster Denis without Lord Imrah’s involvement, which would surely spare the guildmaster and his daughter some embarrassment. 

Roald couldn’t comprehend an affluent, influential merchant undermining his authority by implying that he couldn’t control his own family unless the situation were dire. He prayed to Mithros and the Goddess that Emma hadn’t committed a rash crime that would earn her harsh punishment. He could only imagine her breaking the law out of impulsivity, not out of spite, but justice saw only actions and was blind to motivations. 

He was cut out of his musings by the return of Bryce, who had an ashen Emma in tow. Emma went paler than a bone when she spotted her father in the study, and when she gave a wobbly curtsy with murmured acknowledgments of the assembled, Roald feared she might faint. 

Fortunately, she didn’t as Guildmaster Denis glared at her with a disgust that suggested she was a vile slug oozing across his polished shoe rather than a precious daughter. As the gray sky outside cracked open like an egg, sheets of rain slapping the windows and walls in a downpour, he thundered, matching the weather with his ire, “I’ve arranged for this creature whom I’m now ashamed to call blood of my blood and flesh of my flesh to marry a good man, a rich man, an esteemed man…” 

“A man over forty with rotting teeth he never cleans.” Emma’s russet eyes blazed under her auburn ringlets. Roald’s forehead furrowed. He sensed that Emma must have refused a betrothal her father had decreed for her. Under Tortallan law, that was her right—none could force another to wed unwillingly or the marriage was invalid, but he did believe in his heart that children should honor their parents with obedience, especially in major matters. He would never have defied an engagement his parents had arranged for him, but then Mama and Papa hadn’t chosen for him a spouse over forty with a mouth rank with decay. In Emma’s unenviable position, he didn’t know what he would do: honor his parents or respect himself even if it caused social scandal and political disaster. “A slimy man. A man who looks at me with lust, not love.” 

“You think your butcher’s son sees you as anything more than a piece of meat?” roared Guildmaster Denis, pounding a fist into his other palm with an expression that indicated a fervent desire to be punching her stubborn face instead. 

“My butcher’s son loves me and has worked hard to rise as a merchant rather than inheriting his wealth on a silver platter as the man you chose for me did.” Emma’s jaw tightened with a clack Roald could hear. “I’ll not listen to you insult him, Da.” 

“I’ll not listen to you defy me,” snapped Guildmaster Denis. 

Before he could rant on, Lord Imrah interjected, eyes boulders, “If your daughter doesn’t wish to marry the man you’ve selected for her, there’s nothing I can do for you, Guildmaster. Nobody can be compelled to wed without consent. Any coercion negates that consent and invalidates the marriage, rendering it as if it had never happened. That’s the law in Legann and throughout Tortall.” 

Guildmaster Denis, who had apparently expected Lord Imrah to side with him against his daughter, gaped as if he were attempting to catch flies with his mouth. Recovering some semblance of poise, he blustered, “My lord, it’s not just that she rebels against me by refusing the man I picked for her. She added insult to injury two days ago when she married—probably behind a hedgerow like a peasant—that butcher’s boy of hers without my knowledge or consent.” 

“With all due respect, Guildmaster, your knowledge and consent weren’t required for your daughter’s marriage,” pointed out Roald, who believed that the letter of the law should be adhered to as much as possible when reaching a verdict on a dispute. “It’s the willing exchange of vows by the couple that makes the marriage, not consent from parents or blessing from priests and priestesses. The law is plain that those are honored traditions but not necessary for a valid marriage. In the eyes of the law, the couple marries themselves. If your daughter and her husband exchanged vows willingly, only themselves and the gods may tear them asunder.” 

“Your Highness.” Guildmaster Denis bowed deeply, his cheeks puce. “I won’t challenge your understanding of the law, but I’ll sooner disown my daughter than see her wed to a butcher’s son. If she won’t abandon her butcher’s boy, I’ll disinherit and repudiate her in the civil courts.” 

Roald longed to argue that Guildmaster Denis couldn’t disown his daughter for exercising her rights, but he couldn’t make a convincing case since the law allowed a father to disinherit his offspring for any reason or no reason at all. Beyond that, marrying against your father’s wishes would be regarded by most Tortallans as legitimate grounds for disownment. Even Papa, who was usually progressive about permitting people to choose for themselves, would probably have conceded that it was although he wouldn’t—at least Roald hoped—have done such a thing himself. Mama, whose dread at the prospect of an arranged marriage had been part of why she had fled Sarain, might have felt differently: that disinheriting a child for selecting their own spouse was repugnant. Maybe that was where Roald’s gut got its visceral conviction that, though Guildmaster Denis was breaking no law, he was still guilty of a horrible injustice. Sometimes fairness couldn’t be codified in statutes. 

“I won’t abandon my husband.” Emma’s chin lifted, and Roald saw pride but no fear burning in her gaze. “My father may forsake me, but I’ll remain faithful to the man I married until I die.” 

Perhaps it was her utter lack of fear—her failure to flinch before him—that drove Guildmaster Denis to a violent fury. “I’ll teach you a lesson before I kick you into the gutter to crawl about with the rats,” he growled, clenching his fist as he drew back his arm to unleash a mighty swing at her face. 

The blow never connected with her jaw. Lord Imrah had seized Guildmaster Denis’ elbow in an iron grip. Eyes and voice cold and hard as metal in midwinter, Lord Imrah warned, “Guildmaster Denis, I permit no one to strike my servants under my roof.” 

“Forgive me.” Guildmaster Denis looked far from apologetic but he didn’t struggle against Lord Imrah’s hold. “I forgot myself.” 

“If you intend to disown your daughter, she’s no longer under your authority.” Lord Imrah released Guildmaster Denis but fixed such a stern stare upon the merchant that he remained frozen as though carved from ice. “You may disinherit her. That’s your right under the law. None here will deny that. However, understand that I’ll not allow you to harass her or her husband. If you torment her, I’ll pursue justice against you to the full extent of the law as you have against her. What measure of mercy you’ve shown her is what you’ll get from me and what judgment you demand against her you’ll receive from me if you try to make her life a misery. Am I clear?” 

“As crystal.” Guildmaster Denis blinked at Lord Imrah’s threat before asking in an almost whine, “What do you plan to do about her clandestine wedding, my lord?” 

“Since you’ve been at pains to establish that she’s no longer your family, that’s none of your business, Guildsmaster.” Lord Imrah’s words frosted the room, and Roald could see the guildmaster shiver. “I’ll discipline members of my household as I deem fit. Thank you for bringing this matter to my attention. Bryce will see you out now.” 

Guildmaster Denis appeared more prepared to protest than to bow but Bryce had taken tight hold of the merchant’s elbows and was more dragging than escorting him out of the study.


	3. Inherit the Wind

Inherit the Wind

Tension coiled like a serpent ready to strike in the study after the guildmaster left. The room was so silent that Roald could hear his heart beating in his chest until finally Lord Imrah broke the quiet. “Emma, you used your day off to marry in secret a man your father disapproves of, which brought conflict into my castle.” 

“Forgive me, my lord.” Emma hadn’t lowered her head when addressing her furious father but did lower it now. “I should’ve told you that I planned to marry someone other than the man my father chose for me.” 

“Yes, you should’ve.” Lord Imrah sighed. “Is there anything else you’d like to say to me before I reach a judgment?” 

“My father accuses me of marrying behind a hedgerow but the wedding was in a countryside temple.” Emma’s hands pleated her dress. “It was a beautiful ceremony, sir.”

“I’m happy to hear that.” Lord Imrah’s pale eyes were sincere, and his smile a slight one tinged by sorrow. “I wish you a long and joyful marriage, Emma.” 

“Thank you, my lord.” Emma’s voice was barely above a whisper, and Roald figured that she sensed what Lord Imrah had to say next would be less pleasant for her to hear. 

“I bear you no ill will, but your father will expect me to punish you, and he’s an influential man in the city as master of his guild.” Lord Imrah spoke softly but sternly. “Your marriage brought trouble into my household as much as it did your father’s, and you didn’t have the courtesy or the honesty to warn me in advance of how you planned to wed against your father’s wishes. When you keep a secret of such importance from my family and act behind our backs, I can’t trust you enough to have you as a servant in my house. Please understand that if you’d been more forthright about your intentions to marry against your father’s will, I would’ve kept you on as a servant, but your secretiveness put me in an untenable position without warning, and for that I’m dismissing you.” 

Roald bit back a gasp. He had never heard a servant dismissed before. He supposed that a servant should be relieved of her duties if she kept secrets from her family and brought discord to the house she served, but he understood why Emma might have been less than forthcoming about one secret that could ruin her life without that rendering her so untrustworthy that she had to be dismissed. 

He expected Emma to cry—her world had to be crashing around her ears—but though her eyes were moist, she didn’t weep as she gave a rather pitiful attempt at a dignified nod. “I understand, sir. I regret keeping my marriage secret from you more than from my father, and I apologize much more for brining trouble into your house than I do for bringing it into my father’s.” 

“You’re relieved of your duties starting now, and I’ll expect you to be moved out of the castle within the week.” Lord Imrah’s words were firm but there was a hint of compassion in his gaze. “You needn’t fear I’ll be vindictive with you, Emma. You’ll receive a full month’s wages from me before you leave, my wife and I will write letters of recommendation if you want to serve in another household, and if your father torments you or your new husband, you’ll have my support against him. I trust you find that arrangement fair?” 

“More than fair, my lord.” Emma’s throat seemed to choke around her response, and Roald couldn’t blame her. He felt as if a noose were tightening around his own neck, even though he hadn’t been the one dismissed from Lord Imrah’s service. 

“Very well.” Lord Imrah waved his hand at the study door. “Thank you for your service, Emma, and I believe we’re both sorry it had to end on these terms. You may go prepare for your departure however you need. Please see me for your last payment before you take your leave from the castle.” 

“Yes, sir.” Emma gave the clumsiest curtsy Roald had ever seen from her and hurried from the room—probably to sob her eyes out somewhere private. In her shoes, that was what Roald would’ve done. 

Once the door had shut behind her and Roald could be reasonably confident that she wouldn’t overhear, he asked, his forehead furrowing, “Did you have to relieve her of her duties, sir? She violated no laws by marrying against her father’s will.” 

“Servants can bee dismissed for any number of offenses that aren’t against the law, lad,” Lord Imrah reminded him. “You were also present when I explained that she wasn’t relieved of her duties for disobeying her father but for breaking my trust by keeping secrets and sneaking behind my back. I’ll not have anyone in my service whom I can’t trust.” 

“She’s sixteen, and she was in what must have seemed to her an impossible position.” Roald bit his lip. From painful experience, he knew that people of his age were prone to poor decisions under pressure. Most of their mistakes weren’t made out of malice but just out of a lack of experience or judgement. “She made a mistake, my lord, but does that mean she’s untrustworthy?” 

“It was a big enough mistake that, yes, it does.” Lord Imrah massaged his temples. “I realize that you sympathize with her given your similarities in age, but you must appreciate that she’s made a grave error in judgment and must suffer the consequences of her own actions—just as her father and I will feel the impact of her choice.” 

“What if I got married to someone I wasn’t supposed to and didn’t tell anyone?” Roald frowned. “Would you abandon me quicker than a fair weather friend in a downpour, sir?” 

He knew his question bordered impertinent territory, but he had to hear the answer. He needed assurance that he wasn’t wrong to trust Lord Imrah absolutely because his faith was shaken seeing his knightmaster dismiss Emma so swiftly. 

“Is there a paramour in the city you aren’t telling me about?” Lord Imrah’s eyebrows arched. “If so, Roald, I hope you’ve the wisdom to recognize that she could only ever be a paramour.” 

“I don’t have a paramour, my lord.” Curtly Roald shook his head. He would never have been so dishonorable as to dally with a girl he couldn’t wed, and he’d never be unfaithful to his future bride even before he met her. She was expected to be a virgin when she married him, and he regarded it as only justice that he hold himself to the same standard as the world would her. He was certain that Lord Imrah knew that. Hence his frustration. “You haven’t answered my question, though.” 

“That’s because you shouldn’t compare yourself—the heir to the throne—to a merchant’s daughter for rhetorical purposes.” Lord Imrah’s fingers drummed against his desk. “It savors of passion, squire.” 

“I’m a Conte, sir. Everything we say and do savors of passion.” Roald lifted his chin. “You still haven’t answered my question.” 

“You’re the Crown Prince, and if you were so foolhardy as to discard your engagement to the Yamani princess, I’d ride into battle for you as would every knight in the kingdom. The country would bleed if you broke your betrothal, while the consequences of Emma’s actions are far more limited in scope. I’d be willing to die for you as would many in Tortall, and make no mistake that’s what would happen if you acted as impulsively as Emma did.” Lord Imrah shot Roald, who considered himself sufficiently chastened for his persistence that edged on insolence, a sharp glance. “Does that answer your question, lad, or should I continue?” 

“Your point is well-taken, my lord.” Roald bowed his head, his face ablaze. He’d realized since his parents had announced his betrothal to a Yamani princess that his match had the power to rebuild or destroy the country in the wake of the Immortals War because alliances were even more vital to survival after monsters from nightmares had been reborn into the world, but never before had the fact that he could rip apart the realm been thrust under his nose so bluntly in a conversation. The idea that he could ruin Tortall with a single stupid decision made him shiver. 

“Good. Run along then.” Lord Imrah tilted his chin toward the door. “I find I have a headache from dealing with troublesome teenagers.” 

“I don’t mean to be troublesome, sir.” Roald’s flush reddened his cheeks into apples as he rose and made his way to the door. Sometimes he intended to be stubborn but never troublesome. He wanted to be a good squire despite characteristic uncontrollable Conte obstinance. 

“If you weren’t troublesome at your age, I’d have to worry what was wrong with you.” Lord Imrah’s lips quirked. “Off you go now, Roald.”

With a bow, Roald obeyed. Craving fresh air to reflect on all he had seen and heard in Lord Imrah’s study even if the wind was howling like a pack of ravenous wolves and rain enough to drown the Emerald Ocean was falling from the sky, he grabbed his cloak from his bedroom and went for a walk along the ramparts. 

He wasn’t the only one to seek refuge on the ramparts in the midst of the storm. Sheltering under a gargoyle shaped like a Stormwing, Emma huddled in a cape that billowed around her ankles. Her face was buried in her palms but when Roald approached her, she curtsied, keeping her expression carefully downcast and concealed by the auburn hair streaming in front of her, and murmured, “Your Highness.” 

“Emma.” He nodded at her as she came out of her curtsy. Aware that the question was a ludicrous one under the circumstances but hoping that the gentle hand he rested on her shoulder would express the sympathy his ungainly words couldn’t, he asked, “Are you well?” 

“I will be.” She turned eyes raw and red from weeping that made his heart bleed for her upon him. “Thank you for your concern, Your Highness, and please forgive my tears. I must look as grotesque as a gargoyle.” 

“You don’t need to apologize for your tears.” He wished he could smile at her to soothe her but was afraid that might appear insensitive. He didn’t want to seem a sadistic prince who reveled in the suffering of servants. “When your whole life is changing and everything feels as if its going wrong, you’ve got a reason to cry.” 

“Now that I’m not in Lord Imrah’s service, I’ll be able to devote all my energies to making a home for my husband and me.” Moping her eyes with the sleeves of her cape, Emma sounded determined to focus on the positives of her dismissal and disinheritance. She was impetuous, Roald thought, but she was also courageous and crushed by nothing that was dumped upon her. “My dismissal could be a blessing in disguise. Truthfully I’m not devastated at being dismissed since my husband can provide for me—which is why my father was a fool to fly off the handle about the match—but I regret disappointing Lord Imrah. He’s always been kind to me. Even in dismissing me, he was kind. Most lords would’ve whipped me and sent me off in disgrace without a copper, but he’s giving me a month’s pay and letters of recommendation if I want them.” 

“He’ll protect you if your father tries to make you and your husband miserable.” Fixing her with a piercing stare so she could see how serious he was, he added his promise to Lord Imrah’s. “I’ll do the same, Emma. If your father dares to harass you after disinheriting you, you come to me, and I’ll do what I must to put an end to it.” 

“Thank you, Your Highness.” Emma’s grin was tremulous but it still filled him with hope that she and her husband would find happiness together despite all obstacles and complications. “The Mithran priests always admonish children that those who trouble their own house inherit the wind, and I guess my problem is that I’ve always loved having the wind blow through my hair. I was probably doomed to be disowned.” 

“A father who’d disown you isn’t worth having anyway.” Roald had decided that getting disinherited by a father like Guildsmaster Denis might be more of a gift than a curse. “Not having Guildmaster Denis in your life is more of a cause for celebration than grief.” 

Emma began to giggle almost hysterically, and Roald joined in her laughter no so much because his remark had been particularly witty but just because it felt good to laugh and release some of the terrible tension knotted inside him. Laughter said more than words could ever explain and healed when magic couldn’t. Laughter worked when nothing else could.


	4. Riding to the Rescue

Riding to the Rescue

“Where has Emma gone?” Julienne, Lord Imrah’s seven-year-old daughter, frowned as she nibbled on her buttered toast at breakfast the next morning. At the mention of Emma, whose dismissal rubbed a raw nerve in him, Roald’s fingers clenched with a desire to hurl his cup of tea at the wall, howling against the injustice of Emma being relieved of her duties. Only his determination not to disgrace himself kept the mug in his hands and the words in his mouth. “It’s not her day off, and, when I checked with the healers, they said she wasn’t sick.” 

“She’s probably in the room she shares with our other maids, packing her bags to leave.” Nine-year-old Mathilde’s voice was brisk as she dribbled an ample around of honey into her porridge—so much that the honey threatened to drown the oats. “Ma explained everything yesterday.”

Arching an eyebrow as he sipped his tea, Roald doubted that even the exceedingly forthright Lady Marielle would describe to her daughters Emma’s sudden, uncondoned-by-her-father marriage. Girls of the nobility, staunchly protected by their parents, were expected to be innocent as butterflies when it came to such unconventional weddings. 

“Ma said she got married on her last day off.” Julienne’s forehead crinkled. “I don’t know why she didn’t tell us she was getting married, though.” 

“Getting married is a big change.” Lady Marielle’s eyes flicked over to her husband, who seemed to be intent on cutting a sausage into neat slices, as she answered. “Sometimes people are reluctant to talk about a big change before it happens. Big changes can make people nervous, Julienne, especially if they on’t know how others will react.” 

“I don’t see why her marriage is so big a change that she has to leave us.” Julienne’s head was cocked in confusion, and Roald resisted the temptation to bolt from the table. All this talk of Emma’s leaving was too much for him to hear first thing in the morning. 

“Emma is a married woman now.” Lady Marielle squeezed her younger daughter’s hand as Roald tried to calm himself by circling his palms around his mug, hoping the warmth would seep into him and soothe him. “Her home is with her husband now, not with us, and her first duty is serving him now, not us.” 

“She should’ve told me she was getting married.” Julienne’s chin trembled. “She’s the best with her needle, and she promised me that we’d sew clothes for the needy in the city together. She promised that even though she knew she’d be leaving, which makes it a lie. Now who’ll work on the project with me?” 

“You’re so selfish, Julienne.” Mathilde blew on her porridge to cool it, ignoring the reproachful glance this uncouth behavior earned her from her mother. “Did you honestly expect Emma to care more about your stitchery than her marriage?” 

“Be kind to your sister, Mathilde,” Lady Marielle chided before turning her attention upon her younger daughter. “The other ladies-in-waiting and I will take it in turns to help you with your project until I’ve hired a new maid as skilled with her needle as Emma who can assume Emma’s responsibilities.” 

“I wish I’d seen Emma’s wedding.” Julienne bit her lip. “She must’ve made a beautiful dress for herself. I wonder why she didn’t invite us.” 

“Ma said she wanted a quiet wedding,” pointed out Mathilde, tart as the lemon in Roald’s tea. “Something she’d never get with you around.” 

Before Julienne could retort, Marcus, one of the guards stationed outside the dining room, burst into the room alongside a gray-faced man soaked with sweat and mud. 

“Pardon the interruption.” Marcus bowed. “A rider rode in from Mountroyal with urgent news I though you’d want to hear directly, my lord.” 

“Spidrens, milord,” gasped the gray-faced man, who had fallen to his knees out of respect, sheer exhaustion, or the memory of a dreadful horror. The cup of tea between Roald’s fingers felt cold as ice, and, recalling how monstrous spidrens could be in maiming and killing people, he understood the haunted look in the man’s eyes. If this man’s village had been ransacked by spidrens, that would be fuel for a thousand nightmares. “They attacked just after dark yesterday night. I don’t know how many they killed or carried off to their webs. I’m the fastest rider in the village, not meaning to boast, so I saddled my horse and took off for help at once. I feel such a coward for not staying to fight—“ 

“You aren’t a coward.” Lord Imrah extended a hand to lift the man to his feet. “You were very brave, riding through the night to do your duty by your people and fetch help for them. Help that will come now.” 

Seeing the man swaying, Roald remembered yesterday’s raging storm with its torrents of rain and powerful gales of wind. 

“My lord, he must be feverish.” Roald surged out of his chair, summoning healing magic to his fists. “I could—“ 

“You could but you won’t.” Lord Imrah shook his head. “Save your strength and your Gift, squire. You’ll need to draw on both before the sun sets.” 

Roald, still aching to heal the man but realizing that Lord Imrah was right about him needing to preserve his strength for the battle against the spidrens and his healing magic for the aftermath, let his Gift stream back into himself. Goose bumps prickled his skin and his hair stood on end not just because of the magic pouring into himself unused but because soon he would be tangling with spidrens for the first time since he became a squire. 

“I’ll have you taken up to the infirmary,” added Lord Imrah to the villager who had arrived with such grim tidings. “Our healers will tend to you there.” 

“Milord.” The man attempted to draw himself up into an impressive posture but only ended up wobbling. “I could come with you.” 

“You’re in no fit state for riding or fighting.” Lord Imrah rested a steadying palm on the man’s shaking shoulder. “By riding here so swiftly you’ve helped your people as much as you can. Now help yourself by seeing a healer.” 

“Yes, milord.” The man ducked his head in weary consent. 

“Marcus, please escort this man to the infirmary. Then collect your squad and Bryce’s before reporting to the stables,” ordered Lord Imrah. “I want to ride out of here before the next bell tolls.” 

“As you command, sir.” Marcus flashed a crisp salute and then wrapped an ar around the mud-splattered man, guiding him from the room. 

“I’ll be back as soon as I can, my love.” Lord Imrah kissed his wife’s cheek. 

“I’ll wait for you and hold this madhouse together for you as long as I must.” Lady Marielle cupped his chin and then pecked his lips. 

Roald blushed and stared at the dirty footprints the villager had trailed across the carpet as Lord Imrah and Lady Marielle kissed. He looked up only when Lord Imrah began to bid farewell to his daughters. 

Ruffling their hair, Lord Imrah told them firmly, “Obey your mother while I’m gone, girls, and don’t argue with one another more than usual. Your mother will have enough to worry about without you two being at each other’s throats like wolves in a wood.” 

“I’ll be good like I always am, Da.” Julienne threw her arms around her father in what appeared to be a crushing embrace. 

“Stay safe, Da.” Mathilde didn’t wait for her sister to stop hugging her father and instead joined the embrace with fervor. 

“I will.” Lord Imrah kissed each of his daughters on the forehead before releasing them. 

Pale eyes riveting on Roald, he rapped out, “Arm and mount up, lad. We’ve a village to save.”


	5. Caught in the Spidren Web

Caught in the Spidren Web

Mountroyal was a village of stone cottages tucked into the coastal cliffs, battered by the perpetual winds sweeping off the Emerald Ocean. According to the headman, the spidrens that had raided the village had retreated with their captives to a cave buried in the bluffs. Reaching this cave required climbing along an overgrown, seldom-used goat track, which was cumbersome in full armor as Roald soon discovered. 

The cave, challenging as it was to reach, was even more hostile once they arrived. A gleaming web spun by spidrens glowed in the entrance. When they swatted at it with their swords and spears, it clung to their weapons until they brushed it off on the sheer cliff face that fell steeply into the crashing waves below. 

Roald’s heart beat a frantic tattoo in his chest as he followed Lord Imrah into the cave. At first, he thought the pounding noise he heard in the cave was the sound of his heart hammering, but then he realized it was the eerie echo of the ocean smashing against the shore. 

Eternal twilight reigned in the cave though it was only an hour after midday. The only sources of light were the sickening shine of the spidren web and the flickering orange of torches borne by the villagers who had volunteered to help fight the spidrens. The torch-bearing villagers flanked Lord Imrah, Roald, and the two squads of soldiers as they advanced on the spidrens. Their torches were meant to discourage the spidrens from fleeing, trapping them against the cave walls. Once the captives were freed, the torches could also be used to set fire to the spidren web, destroying the web and any spidrens inside it at the time of its conflagration.

Nocturnal monsters, the spidrens stirred out of their slumber when the soldiers began fighting through the web into the cave. Hating the light, they howled in rage at the sight of the torches burning in their lair. 

The two squads fanned out around the shimmering spidren web. Lord Imrah, Roald, and three men apiece from Bryce’s and Marcus’ squads remained in the center, while what was left of Bryce’s squad spearheaded the right assault, and what remained of Marcus’ squad formed the left side of their attack. 

Roald paradoxically felt as if time were moving too fast for him to blink and as if it were crawling along with each moment containing an eternity as a spidren, spitting shining threads of wrath woven into web, lurched forward to engage him. Drawing on his Gift, he directed a piercing light directly into the black holes of the spidren’s eyes. As the spidren cried out in anguish, Laurent, an expert spear-wielder from Bryce’s squad, plunged his weapon through the spidren’s heart. 

When the spidren crumbled into a lifeless ball, Roald found himself staring into the feverish gaze of a kidnapped woman wrapped in the web. “Stay still,” he cautioned her though the tendrils that trapped her seemed to offer her the mobility of manacles. 

With that warning, he sliced the web away from her with his sword. Weak-kneed and pale from the loss of blood, she tumbled out of the web, unable to support herself. Another one of Bryce’s soldiers, a burly man named Bevin, caught her before she collapsed onto the cave floor. Scooping her into his broad arms, he carried her away from the fray. As Bevin bore her off to be tended by the village healing woman, Roald could see she had lost a foot to the spidrens. 

“You stole a tasty morsel.” A charging spidren’s face twisted with fury confronting Roald. “You must pay by becoming a tasty morsel yourself.” 

It was on the tip of Roald’s tongue to retort that the spidren could become a tasty morsel itself when he remembered that would be a waste of breath. Taunts and flashes of temper were distractions he couldn’t afford in battle. He had to remain focused. 

Taking a deep breath, he lashed out with his magic again, dazing the spidren with a starburst of brightness. Then, exploiting his advantage as the spidren shrieked a protest at being suddenly blinded, he shoved his sword where he had been taught its lungs should be. Its scream died in its throat as the sword pierced through lungs. It fell, dead as its scream, to the cave floor, and Roald had to leap backward in order to keep from being crushed under its weight. 

As he jumped backward, Roald could see Laurent, whose spear had claimed its second spidren, cutting a man from the village out of the web. The man was bleeding from a stump that had once been an arm as Laurent with a firm grip about his shoulders helped him hobble away from the carnage to be healed. To his right, Lord Imrah had beheaded another spidren, reducing it to legs that kicked feebly before going forever motionless, and was disentangling a weeping boy from the web. 

When the spidren Roald had killed fell, it revealed a flaxen-haired girl whose shifting blue-green eyes reminded him so much of Vania that it made his heart ache. He bent to cut her free with his sword and saw with a pang that one of her legs was gone. The horror of what was transpiring around her was reflected in her gaze, and in a desperate attempt to encourage her to think about something else he said in a rush, “I’m Roald. What’s your name?” 

“Claire.” Her answer was so faint that, even inches from her lips, he was surprised he could hear it over the clash of weapons. 

“Nice to meet you, Claire, though I apologize for the circumstances of our introduction.” He finished carving her out of the web and balanced her on his hip, preparing to retreat with her to the healing woman’s cottage where he could tend to her wound.

Before he had taken a step, however, he was stopped when Lord Imrah seized his elbow. “Take the boy.” Lord Imrah thrust the crying boy he had rescued, whom Roald noticed with a knotting stomach was missing a hand, at Roald. 

Grateful for all the experience being the oldest of six siblings provided with carrying young children, Roald hoisted the boy onto his other hip and began to beat a hasty retreat. He had run only a few feet before the shrieks of attacking spidrens made him glance over his shoulder. Blood turned to ice in his veins as he saw three spidrens bearing down on Lord Imrah, pincers clinking and mandibles clacking menacingly. He froze—torn between saving the children or his knightmaster, and loathing the spidrens for forcing him to abandon either the children or Lord Imrah—and, in the calm before the storm when the spidrens struck, his knightmaster tried to make his decision easier, shouting over his shoulder, “Go, Roald! Get the children to safety.” 

As the trio of spidrens descended on Lord Imrah, Roald revolted against the command to flee. Even if he was rescuing the children, it still felt like cowardice to run when his knightmaster was about to be savaged by spidrens. Every instinct inside him cried out that he could help—that he had to help. An urgent idea flared inside his head, and with a surge of strength that almost knocked him off his feet, he channeled his Gift into blue flames that burned the spidrens to ashes. 

The power behind this magic made his skull feel on the verge of cracking. His head ached and his ears throbbed. He should have fled with the children but instead he stared at the charred remains of the spidrens, shocked by what he had wrought with little more than a thought. Magic was so terrifying and wonderful at times. 

“Are we ever gettin’ out of here?” The boy perched on Roald’s hip was trying to hide his eyes behind the hand he had left, and if there was a more pitiful sight in the world, Roald never wanted to behold it. 

“Yes, we’re getting out of here now,” Roald assured him, thinking that it was a good thing that the heart broke so quietly nobody could hear. The headache of the reprimand Lord Imrah would doubtlessly deliver for his disobedience—his direct contradiction of orders—was a problem for later. Now the only concern was carrying the children to a place they could be healed.


	6. Healing Touch

Healing Touch

The main room of the healer’s cottage had been converted to a makeshift infirmary for the wounded villagers and soldiers. Roald carried the two children, who had lost so much blood that they were fading into sleep, there and deposited them on a pair of empty cots. 

The healing woman was busy bandaging a stump that had been an arm while a healer from Bryce’s squad closed a gash on a soldier’s head and one from Marcus’ squad tended to the village woman who had lost her foot. 

Roald’s head still felt bruised and his body drained but he didn’t want the children who had endured so much to suffer through the added agony of awaiting a healer’s ministrations even if they had drifted into uneasy dreams. 

“I’ve training in healing, mistress,” he told the village healing woman, who replied only with a brusque nod as he grabbed a basin of clean water, fresh cloths, and salve off the wooden shelves hanging from her stone wall. 

He cleaned, dabbed with salve, and wrapped in tight bandages the girl Claire’s wound and then the unknown boy’s. While he worked, he wondered about their futures and worried about what would befall them. Claire’s leg could be replaced by a peg, but she would spend the rest of her life hobbling and hopping from place to place. The boy’s hand couldn’t be substituted, and he would probably need to carry a magistrate’s letter in his pocket whenever he traveled testifying that the hand had been lost not as a penalty for theft but as an injury from a spidren attack. 

Tortall, Roald knew, wasn’t always kind to its cripples, even those maimed by monsters. All too often those with missing limbs or similar infirmaries were treated not with compassion but with contempt. They were spat upon as burdens unable to fulfill their duties to society and so worse than worthless. He hoped that Claire and the boy would find a place in the world where they would have a purpose but feared they wouldn’t. 

When they awoke and discovered that what had happened with the spidrens hadn’t been merely a nightmare and that they were broken beyond even magical repair, Roald flinched from imagining how they would react. They were just children but they would have to bear an adult pain, and Roald would be helpless to cure their more agonizing inner hurts. As a healer, he had only been taught how to treat the surface wounds, and that made him feel as if he were a bumbling bull in a porcelain shop…

Marcus entered the cottage, bearing Adrian, the youngest soldier in his squad, who had celebrated his seventeenth birthday with a cake that made honey dribble down his chin if Roald recalled correctly. That and more tiny memories of Adrian—insignificant except that they were all he knew of the other young man—Adrian grinning roguishly as he tugged teasingly on a maid’s braid or tried to charm warm bread from the oven off the cooks—whirled inside Roald’s mind as Marcus laid Adrian on a vacant cot. 

Dizzy with memories of Adrian and finished tending to the children as much as he could, Roald crossed over to Adrian’s bedside on numb legs. When he saw Adrian, pale as the cotton sheet curled around him, bleeding profusely from a raw red slash across the chest, he bit back a gasp. From glancing at Adrian, he could sense like a rock dropping with a thud into his stomach that the soldier had lost too much blood to survive this injury, but, gathering his magic about him like a cloak, he probed Adrian and confirmed he was slipping into the Black God’s embrace. 

“I’m so tired,” rasped Adrian, coughing up more blood onto his shirt that was stained rusty with it. 

“You’ll be asleep soon, lad.” Marcus squeezed Adrian’s limp fingers. 

“I can help you sleep.” Roald grasped Adrian’s other hand, which was cold as a marble tombstone in a catacomb. Drawing on his persuasive powers and the remaining reserves of his Gift, he riveted his gaze on Adrian’s, which was hazy as the life ebbed from him. “Close your eyes. Don’t feel any pain. The battle is over. Be at peace.” 

Adrian’s eyelids drooped shut. His chest rose and fell but never rose again. As the breath left him, Roald felt as if all the strength had been sapped from him too. He sagged and might have collapsed to the floor if a firm hand hadn’t gripped his elbow. It was only then that he realized his knightmaster was in the healer’s cottage. 

“Steady, squire.” Lord Imrah bundled a plaid blanket from a stack on a chair around Roald’s shaking shoulders. “I’ve got you.” 

“I don’t need a blanket, sir.” Roald’s wits weren’t so rattled that he had forgotten the blankets on the chair were for the injured, which he wasn’t, no matter how shattered he felt at present. 

“Hush.” Lord Imrah was steering Roald from the room, and the combination of his steadying palm and the softness of the blanket made it impossible for Roald to argue further. “You’re shivering.” 

“I couldn’t save Adrian.” Roald, unable to meet Lord Imrah’s piercing eyes, stared into his trembling hands and tried not to bawl like a baby. Princes weren’t supposed to do anything so undignified as crying. “He’d lost too much blood for me to heal him. All I could do, my lord, was try to keep him calm and comfortable when he died.” 

“Adrian is no longer suffering.” Lord Imrah guided Roald into a hug. “He is at peace now. You did all you could for him, Roald, and now you must also be at peace.” 

“Yes, sir,” whispered Roald, thinking that peace would only come to him after Adrian stopped haunting his nightmares for failing to save him. 

Perhaps Lord Imrah could read Roald’s mind because he nudged Roald into the kitchen. “You’ve used a lot of magic for one day. It’s time you restored your energy and got something in your stomach.” 

“I’m not hungry but thank you for your concern, my lord.” Roald’s stomach was so empty it hurt but was also in such turmoil that he was afraid it would spew vomit all over the kitchen if he dared to put food into it. 

“Nonsense.” Lord Imrah ladled beef-and-barley stew bubbling in a pot over the fire into a bowl, which he dumped a spoon into, and handed it to Roald. The spices in the stew made Roald’s mouth water but he still didn’t want to risk throwing up. “I can practically hear your stomach growling. Eat up.” 

“No, thank you, sir.” Roald was reluctant to pour the stew back into the pot since that would be rude as a pig flipping over the bucket after gobbling the table scraps. Besides, the stew smelled tantalizing. If he couldn’t eat the stew, at least the heady aroma could replenish him. “I don’t want to eat.” 

“I didn’t ask if you wanted to eat, squire.” Lord Imrah pressed Roald onto a hard oak bench by the stone hearth with a strong palm. “I ordered you to eat. Now don’t make me force-feed you. Neither of us will enjoy it if I have to do that, I assure you.” 

Studying Lord Imrah’s craggy face through his eyelashes, Roald couldn’t figure out if his knightmaster was serious about this threat. Deciding that he didn’t wish to find out, Roald lifted the spoon to his lips and took his first swallow of stew. The steaming hot food warmed him from top to toe and restored some of his flagging energy. Soon he was shoveling spoonful after spoonful into his mouth at a pace propriety would have frowned upon. He was grateful for his knightmaster commanding him to eat but he wasn’t about to admit that to Lord Imrah. After all, he had his Conte pride. 

“We need to talk, Roald.” Lord Imrah sat on the bench beside Roald. “About what happened during today’s battle.” 

The battle felt as if it had occurred a century ago to some strange historical personage, and it was difficult for Roald to understand what his knightmaster would wish to speak with him about. Then he remembered how he had defied a clear command in the midst of combat—one of the gravest violations a warrior could be guilty of—and flushed to the roots of his coal black hair. Talk was definitely a euphemism for a severe rebuke in that context, Roald thought with a mental wince. 

“Yes, my lord.” Roald’s eyes sank to his stew as he ducked his head, chastened before the scolding even began. 

“Look at me.” Lord Imrah tilted Roald’s chin up. “I told you to retreat and get the children to safety but you stayed to burn the spidrens to ashes with your magic. You deliberately disobeyed me.” 

That was Lord Imrah: explaining the offense sternly but not angrily. Roald could have pointed out that he had been able to rescue the children and destroy the spidrens with his Gift but Lord Wyldon had pounded into his head that warriors didn’t contradict their superiors and that explanations were thinly veiled excuses. He said quietly, “Forgive me, my lord.” 

“There’s nothing to forgive you for, lad.” Lord Imrah gave a crooked smile. “Even if you did disobey me, you did the right thing, and I’m proud of you.” 

“I thought you’d be furious at me, sir.” Roald gaped at his knightmaster, convinced he was the only squire in the history of civilization to be praised rather than punished for defiance. 

“You’d a clever a idea and the confidence to implement it.” Lord Imrah tapped Roald’s knee. “When you’re a knight and more importantly when you’re king, you’ll need to make your own choices and trust your own judgments. There’ll be times when you won’t be able to look to anyone, even me, for advice or orders. You did well making your own bold decision today. I’m not going to scold you for that, squire.” 

“Thank you, my lord.” Roald shot his knightmaster a grin caught somewhere between the relieved and the impish. “I hate it when you scold.” 

“You’re supposed to hate it when I scold.” Lord Imrah tossled Roald’s hair. “If you didn’t, it’d be a sign of dereliction of duty on my part.”


	7. Loose Threads

Loose Threads

As soon as the wounded could be safely moved, they were transported back to Legann Castle to be attended by Lord Imrah’s healers. Three days after the fight against the spidrens in the cave outside Mountroyal, Roald could be found in Legann Castle’s infirmary, replacing bandages, healing and rubbing salve on injuries, and ensuring that all the hurt had blankets, food, and water.

Most of the wounded villagers had family who accompanied them up to the castle and who sat vigil by their beds, comforting them. The man who had lost an arm had the pain kissed away by his wife, who reminded him that he still had his dominant one, and the boy with the missing hand was cradled by his parents whenever he started to sob, but Roald never saw the girl Claire consoled by any relatives. 

She didn’t appear lonely with her sunbeam head bent over her stitchery, Roald though as he refilled the water glass on her nightstand with the pitcher he was carrying. Still, he had to ask even if it was unpardonably nosy, “Do you have no family to visit you, Claire?” 

“Ma died giving birth to me, and Da was a fisherman who drowned last autumn when a sudden storm swept him into the ocean. He was a fisherman who couldn’t swim. There are a lot of those in Mountroyal.” Claire’s gaze was wide and wet as the ocean that had claimed her father as she looked up from her needlework. “I lived with my aunt and uncle after that, but before I was brought here, they told me they didn’t want anything more to do with me. I can’t help out in the fields or even be a goatherd or a shepherd with a peg leg. I’m useless to them, and I wouldn’t even earn the food I’d take from their children, so they had to kick me out, Your Highness.” 

Ever since Claire had learned he was a prince, she had insisted on addressing him by his title despite him pointing out that since he had introduced himself to her with his first name only it was entirely proper for her to call him by that alone. She was a stubborn little creature like his younger sister Vania, he decided, and he hoped that would help her survive the harsh would that had crippled her. The spidrens could steal her leg but not her resilience. 

“You don’t have a place to go once you’re healed?” Roald’s forehead furrowed. It would be his duty to guarantee that Claire was cared for if her own family was unwilling to assume that obligation. Certainly he wouldn’t abandon her to beg or starve in the streets. 

“There’s a convent of the Goddess in Port Legann.” Claire’s needle pulled in and out of her fabric, and Roald saw that she was a deft hand at stitchery, manipulating the threads to reflect life. “If I knock on their gates and want to train as a priestess, they have to take me in, Your Highness.” 

“You don’t want to be a priestess, though?” Roald cocked his head as he considered Claire and her dilemma, noticing out of the corner of his eyes that Emma, who had no Gift but was nursing the injured as much as she could despite that limitation, was spooning chicken and vegetable soup into the waiting mouth of the Mountroyal woman who had lost her foot laying in the bed to the right of Claire’s. 

“I want to be a seamstress.” Claire’s smile was small and sad. “No seamstress will be interested in an apprentice with a peg leg, and I couldn’t afford an apprentice fee, especially not now that my family’s washed their hands of me. I’ll have to be content with sewing altar clothes and charity clothes for the priestesses.” 

Perhaps it was the sight of Emma guiding spoonfuls of soup into the village woman’s mouth that gave Roald an idea of how Claire could use her sewing outside a convent and Lady Marielle could find a maid who was as skilled with her needle as Emma. Gesturing at her needlework, Roald inquired, “May I borrow that?” 

“Of course, Your Highness.” Claire removed her needle and tied her loose thread before offering her project to Roald. “All I have is yours.” 

“You’ll have it back in a couple of hours at most,” he assured her. 

He planned to leave for Lady Marielle’s solar at once to try to persuade her to accept Claire as a lady’s maid but his tongue knotted before he could even imagine what words he would say to his knightmaster’s wife to convince her to invite an unknown cripple into her service. He feared she would reject the proposal without even hearing him out, nettled at him for interfering in her household affairs, and the crushing shame of failing before he could even try made him flee to the refuge of a balcony outside the infirmary. 

The wintry wind whipped at his skin, lashing at him for not being able to save Claire—he had delivered her from the spidrens, but that rescue wasn’t worth a copper if he couldn’t secure a place for her in the world. He was wondering whether she would ever reach the breaking point of cursing him for saving her when she could have died—when maybe it would have been a mercy to end up in a spidren’s stomach—when the door swung open behind him, and Emma, arms ladern with soiled chamber pots, stepped onto the balcony. 

“I see you’ve found someone to fill my place with Lady Marielle, Your Highness.” Emma strode over to the railing to empty the chamber pots into a gutter that would carry the odiferous contents to a ditch on the ground below. 

“Nobody could take your place, Emma.” Roald spoke the words not because they were polite but because they were true. He would miss Emma’s bluntness and brightness as she went about her responsibilities. 

“You mustn’t think I’m jealous of a slip of a girl whose leg was eaten by spidrens.” Emma shot a keen glance over her shoulder as she dumped a chamber pot into the gutter. “Goddess knows that poor child needs the position more that I do, and I could never begrudge her for that.” 

“How generous of you,” Roald remarked, lips twitching into the beginning of a wry smirk. 

“Not really.” Emma grinned slyly at him as she emptied another chamber pot into the gutter. “Truth be told, I never needed my position here very much, though I admit I was grateful to escape my boorish father. Sending me to serve Lady Marielle when I was nine was my father’s most brilliant notion, although that isn’t saying much to be sure.” 

“You think I should ask Lady Marielle to take Claire into her service then?” Roald gnawed on his lip. 

“Yes, definitely.” Decisively Emma tipped the last chamber pot into the gutter and spun away from the railing. “The worst she can say is no, but she’ll probably agree to having Claire as a maid since she’s a compassionate lady.” 

“You’re oversimplifying.” Roald shook his head and tore at his hair with his fingers. “It’s not just that she could say no. It’s that she could be angered at me attempting to dictate who she invites into her service or that she could be offended at me trying to influence how she runs her household. If I ask her to take Claire as a maid, I don’t just risk her refusing. I risk her being affronted by my presumptuousness, Emma.” 

“If she’s miffed by you asking a favor for a crippled girl, then she’s not half the gracious lady I believe she is.” Emma hesitated and then went on, “If it’s not too bold for me to say—“ 

“We both know that something being to bold has never stopped you from saying it.” Roald waved a palm for her to continue. “Go on. I’m all ears.” 

“You’re a good person, and you know what’s right better than most people, Your Highness.” Emma’s auburn ringlets flapped in the cold December wind, but her gaze was unwavering as it anchored on Roald’s. “You just have to be courageous about doing the right thing when you’ve figured out what it is. If you weren’t meant by the gods to be courageous, you never would’ve been born the Crown Prince.” 

“I’ll keep your wise counsel in mind.” It occurred to Roald that Lord Imrah might have been teaching him the same lesson in different words after he had defied an order in the battle against the spidrens. Wishing that he wasn’t such a slow learner, he inclined his head to her. “I’ll speak with Lady Marielle now. Good day, Emma.” 

With that, he left the balcony before he would have to see how apt she was at juggling three chamber pots while curtsying.


	8. Family Ties

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This marks the end of this particular story of Roald’s time as Lord Imrah’s squire. I thank all those who read it and hoped that they found the tale enjoyable. I plan to write more about Roald’s adventures as Lord Imrah’s squire, so keep an eye out for more such stories, though I don’t promise these stories will be published right away. For now, they are just ideas bouncing around in my head that some day I hope to capture on paper. A big thank you, however, to all those who have stuck with this story and who have supported me throughout writing it. A multi-chapter story is always a challenge, and I am crossing my fingers that the ending will be satisfactory to all.

Family Ties

Lady Marielle was balancing household accounts when the guardsman Marcus admitted him into her solar. Setting down her quill and folding her ledger, she gestured for Roald to sit in the chair across from her table. As he slipped onto the cushioned seat opposite her, she asked, lifting a manicured eyebrow, “How might I help you, Roald?” 

“I’ve been tending to the wounded from Mountroyal.” Roald wasn’t sure where to start his appeal and so began at what seemed the simplest spot, telling himself that a journey of a thousand leagues was less intimidating after taking the first stride. “There’s a girl—her name is Claire—who lost her leg in the spidren attack. Her mother died in childbirth, her father was a fisherman who drowned in a storm, and her nearest kin refuse to take her in, claiming she won’t be able to work enough to pay for her food.” 

“My lord and I will find a place for her.” Lady Marielle reached across the table to pat his wrist. “We won’t just toss her into the streets to beg and starve, I assure you. We’ve an obligation to her, and we’ll do our duty by the unlucky girl.” 

“I thought that she might find a place in your service, my lady.” It took all of Roald’s strength not to drop his gaze and instead to meet Lady Marielle’s eyes steadily. “As far as I understand, my lady hasn’t replaced Emma.” When Lady Marielle offered a slight nod to confirm his understanding was correct, Roald breathed deeply before taking the plunge into what what felt like the cold Emerald Ocean in December. “Claire is quite an accomplished hand with a needle, and I believe that she would quickly learn all the other skills required of a lady’s maid. She would be forever grateful to you for taking her in and would make a steadfast servant to you and your husband.” 

Hoping that Claire’s stitchery might persuade Lady Marielle to accept Claire into her service when his tentative, clumsy words couldn’t, he pulled the girl’s needlework from his pocket and handed it to Lady Marielle for her inspection with a deferential bow of his head. 

“Very tidy. Very small. Very colorful and lifelike.” Lady Marielle’s fingers caressed Claire’s stitches. “Julienne would enjoy learning needlework from her, and together they could complete the charity projects Julienne started with Emma. I’ll speak with Claire today about entering our household. You were kind to advocate on her behalf, Roald.” 

Recognizing a dismissal when he heard one, Roald rose with a bow. “Not as kind as you are to take her into your service, my lady.” 

As he left Lady Marielle’s solar, Roald only felt relief—relief that he had spoken for Claire without making an utter imbecile of himself, relief that Lady Marielle hadn’t been infuriated by his suggestion that she accept Claire into her household, and relief that Claire would have a place in a world that could be ruthless to hapless wanderers—but the next day when he removed a dirty blanket from Claire’s bed to be washed and tucked a new one about her snugly, he felt pride and joy stir within him as she stared admiringly at him with wide eyes that made his heart ache with memories of Vania. 

“Lady Marielle invited me to be a lady’s maid for her and her daughters.” Claire’s excitement made her bed bounce. “She said I would sew for them, read to them, play music for them, help them dress, and be their companion. She’s offering me more money in a month than I’ve ever had in my life, and she promised I’ll have a day off a month, Your Highness.” 

“You’ll be happy here.” Roald smiled at her delight. She wanted so earnestly to work, and he had found her some in a household where she would be treated with compassion and respect. Even if she never figured out what she had done for her, he knew and that was all the satisfaction he needed. “Lady Marielle and Lord Imrah are generous and gracious to those of us in their service.” 

“You’re the reason I got the position with Lady Marielle, Your Highness, and I know that because she gave me back the needlework I lent you and told me it was the quality of the stitches that convinced her to take me into her household.” Claire’s beam was broad enough to break her face, and Roald realized with an internal eye roll that he had left so many clues that it wouldn’t require a provost’s bloodhound to unravel the mystery of who had requested Lady Marielle accept Claire into her service. He hadn’t been nearly as subtle as he imagined in his charity. “I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.” 

“You don’t owe me anything.” Roald was a prince, and a prince had to be courteous and gentle to everyone except monsters and enemies of the realm that must be fought fiercely. Fealty was a sword that cut both ways. People were only as loyal as the mercy and justice they received. As above, so below, the peasant mirroring the prince. “If you truly want to thank me, though, serve Lord Imrah and Lady Marielle faithfully. They’ve become like family to me, and with time, you may come to feel the same.”


End file.
